


You Caught Me In The Tide

by spockandawe



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Doctor/Patient, M/M, Medical, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 18:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18393530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: End of the war comes as a big surprise. Not necessarily abadsurprise, and the war has “ended” before, but that was only in the sense of one side winning, not in the sense of both sides reaching an actual peace. The peace is good, but it’s not great realizing that for everyone involved—you included—somewhere along the way you stopped thinking of the war as something that would ever reallystop.Still. All for the best. And the whole mess involved in wrapping this thing up and making (some) steps to reintegrate Autobot and Decepticon society is enough to keep everyone running. Even if hostilities are technically over, every medic you know is overclocking their frames trying to keep up with their patients. There’s a nice dose of casualties from that last clash, plus plenty of misunderstandings that keep escalating into violence. You’d hoped to sink back into the background and just get on with doing your job, butsomebodyhad to go spread the word that hey, this is Ratchet, you know, the medic who served withOptimus Prime,and that clever move means that you haven’t gotten a full night of recharge in longer than you care to remember.





	You Caught Me In The Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Note: There are background shockblurr and subtext megop things happening in this story that are minor enough I didn't want to put them in the tags, but I especially didn't want to leave the shockblurr without any warning.
> 
> With any luck there will be a sequel story to this at some point, which was the fic I _originally_ set out to write, only I got sidetracked by justifying the premise and here we are. I don't want to promise anything, but I do want to write the other story too.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/184036467416/you-caught-me-in-the-tide-spockandawe)

End of the war comes as a big surprise. Not necessarily a _bad_ surprise, and the war has “ended” before, but that was only in the sense of one side winning, not in the sense of both sides reaching an actual peace. The peace is good, but it’s not great realizing that for everyone involved—you included—somewhere along the way you stopped thinking of the war as something that would ever really _stop._

Still. All for the best. And the whole mess involved in wrapping this thing up and making (some) steps to reintegrate Autobot and Decepticon society is enough to keep everyone running. Even if hostilities are technically over, every medic you know is overclocking their frames trying to keep up with their patients. There’s a nice dose of casualties from that last clash, plus plenty of misunderstandings that keep escalating into violence. You’d hoped to sink back into the background and just get on with doing your job, but _somebody_ had to go spread the word that hey, this is Ratchet, you know, the medic who served with _Optimus Prime,_ and that clever move means that you haven’t gotten a full night of recharge in longer than you care to remember.

And that’ll keep going as long as you’re on Cybertron, you expect. Kills you, being away from Optimus at a time like this. The kid’s doing great, all things considered, but you haven’t heard from him in weeks. Haven’t seen him in even longer. That’s… probably good. He knows he can talk to you if it gets rough. Haven’t heard from Megatron either, and the peace hasn’t completely exploded in your face yet, so things are probably okay. Doesn’t really make you feel better about being stuck on Cybertron instead of being out in the middle of things, where you could really _help._

But no. All because you’re the lucky bot who’s bonded to the last living piece of Project Omega. Not that this is _any_ fault of Omega’s. Not his fault he was deliberately built with limited processing so that Autobot High Command could have an easy time pointing him in any direction they wanted and telling him to go kill Decepticons. Not his fault you’re having to fight millions of years of programming and explain to him what a peace this fragile and new and complicated means.

So he’s your main patient. It’s not strictly medical, but… still. He’s on your books, so nobody can take him away from you. And you absolutely definitely do not have clearance to take him off-planet while there’s any possibility he might do what Autobot High Command _built_ him to do and reignite the war. Plus, not that you’d abandon him, but you don’t have clearance to leave him behind either. High Command doesn’t have any guarantee he’ll be willing to listen to anyone but you. If you leave him behind, you’ve got a bad feeling that they’ll solve the problem in a much more _permanent_ way.

Funny how they’re the ones who programmed him like this and now they’re punishing you and him for their own bad decisions. _Real_ funny how Perceptor and every other surviving bot involved in that fiasco completely avoid taking any personal responsibility for their own choices. Shockwave primly refers to Omega’s existence as a war crime whenever the topic comes up in Council meetings, and it makes you bristle every time, but you can’t exactly argue.

Whatever. Progress with Omega is slow and frustrating (and it wrecks you knowing that Optimus is out dealing with politicians and Decepticons left and right without support from anyone who really _knows_ him except Bulkhead and Bumblebee), but working with him is still a bright point in your days.

And working with him is a good excuse to brush off the irritating orbiting pack of mechs you seem to have acquired. You can’t get two kliks to yourself these days unless you’re on the recharge slab. Even when you’re working on a patient, they all cluster outside the door with their fields brushing up against yours in a distracting cloud, waiting for you to be done. They all want things from you, and telling them to shove off just leaves them hanging around waiting to try again. But you keep telling the hovering pests that you’re spending the next cycle talking to Omega and nobody else, _and_ you keep kicking them out of the docking bay when they interrupt, and you think that they might finally be starting to get a clue. When it comes down to Omega’s appointment times, most everybody drifts away, and it really takes a load off your shoulders.

Not quite everyone goes. Still a couple stragglers here and there that seem to think that _they’re_ important enough to pull your attention from your actual patient. Only one real persistent face. Not one you recognize, and you’re not invested enough to look him up. Or ask him. You’re not doing _anything_ to encourage this nonsense. But he sits around and watches and listens while you argue with Omega about how yes, Decepticons _were_ the enemy, but now they’re _not,_ and he sits in a corner and keeps quiet enough you can almost forget he’s there, which means he’s leagues ahead of most everyone else who’s tried tagging along.

No matter how aggressively you aren’t paying attention to him, you can’t help noticing some little things. The way he  moves, for one. Easy to pick out someone trained in Tekkaido if you know what you’re looking for. And— you oughta be better at this by now, you’ve had long enough to practice. But it’s unnerving having someone around who moves like Prowl when you know that Prowl is gone.

You don’t take that out on this guy, because it’s not his fault. It _is_ his fault that he keeps lurking around without giving you an excuse to kick him out, and that the longer he hangs around being tolerable, the more likely you are to… tolerate him. You don’t say any of that out loud, because you know it’s not really fair. Or coherent.

It all sits and stews until one day you get woken up early and called in for emergency treatment for Pharma, who’s half-offline but _still_ tries to feed you a line about how he upgraded himself to have wings as a gesture towards blurring the division between Autobots and Decepticons (like he doesn’t expect you to realize that if he was being _that_ altruistic he would’ve gone through official channels and had another doctor do the procedure _for_ him). He’s completely flippant the whole time he’s on the operating table with you stabilizing his power system, there’s not even a hint of shame or remorse in his field, and you get out of _that_ little adventure irritated beyond words, with a pile of cancelled appointments, and late for your visit to Omega.

You head off to see Omega anyways, because like hell are you going to cancel on him without a word just because of bad decisions from a doctor who should _know better._ At least your entourage doesn’t seem to have gotten the news about your change of schedule. But when your cyber-ninja shadow falls into step behind you, you have to bite your tongue so you don’t snap at him. He’s quiet, but you can still feel the edge of his field against yours.

You’re still seething, and determined _not_ to take it out on anyone, but the silence is managing to annoy you even more than Pharma did, so you finally grit out, “You got a name?”

There’s nothing but more silence for a moment, until you glance back over your shoulder at him. He points at himself, like you’d be talking to anyone else here. When you jerk your chin in a nod, he brightly says, “Drift.”

You ping your databanks without really thinking about it, but when your search comes up blank, you hesitate, frowning. You run the search again, without any more luck. “Why aren’t you—”

“Ah, right.” He hesitates for a moment. “Have you updated your records? Since coming back to the planet, I mean.”

That gives you pause. You step to the side and slow down so that he comes up beside you, and you look him up and down more thoroughly. “You can’t be telling me you’re _that_ young.”

He grins. “You telling me I look all shiny and new, doc? Straight off the assembly line?”

You give that reply all the attention it deserves, which is to say, none.

Drift eventually adds, “I’m… old enough.”

“But not in the old records.”

“Not in the old records, no.” He’s still smiling, but you’re believing it less and less as time goes on. After a moment, he slowly adds, “I’m new to… _Autobot_ records.”

Takes you a little too long to realize what he means, looking at him in his grounder frame, tall and slim and built for speed, but— _Oh._ “That can’t be the frame you were built with.”

“Why, you like it?” He laughs, turning towards you and posing as he walks. He even winks an optic at you. “I make it look good, don’t you think?”

You ignore the showing off and give him a closer look. You’ve seen your fair share of bots popped into new frametypes—hell, you just got out of surgery with Pharma—and you wouldn’t have guessed this was a transplant frame without being told. Even when changes are minor, adjusting is hard. You’re looking forward to Pharma spending years hitting his new wings on door frames, and he didn’t change his size at all, just altered what was already there.

“You’ve got a nice natural stride, considering your original legs must’ve been much longer. Good balance. Wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t told me.” Even if he joined up with the Autobots and swapped bodies right after you left on your deployment with Optimus, just downsizing frames to something this much smaller than the Decepticon norm should have been a major strain, even before all the other changes. And given the nice little surprise you just got from Pharma, as long as peace lasts, you’re pretty sure this is about to be a much more relevant area of concern than it’s ever been before. “Any secrets you want to share?”

Drift waves one hand vaguely. “Metallikato, Tekkaido. Practice?” You feel a flicker of uncertainty in his field. “I’ve been training with Dai Atlas for a while now. It’s been good. It makes me more aware of my spark and my body, very… centering.”

You make a noncommittal noise of agreement. You tried Metallikato exercises a few times here and there, never did anything for you. But who knows, it’s something to keep in mind for patients in the future.

By then, though, you’re just about to Omega’s docking bay, and you’re already late enough, you’re not going to delay things even longer just for the sake of this conversation. Drift moves on off to the side as soon as you’re in the bay, settling down on the floor against a pile of storage crates. You apologize to Omega, and he’s very understanding, but you know he’d be just as understanding if you didn’t have a reason at all, or if you told him you just didn’t feel like coming, and you _wish_ you could get into his processor and pluck out some of the controls that were built into him.

Once you’re done trying to apologize to him, you’re already feeling worn out. You don’t want to try arguing with him about Decepticons and peace and politics. So you don’t. You sit down heavily on the floor and ask, “How have you been?”

“I have been well.” Omega pauses for a moment. “You have been very busy.”

You wince and rub a hand over your face. “Wish I had more time free to spend with you. I wish we could get out to Optimus and have more bots around who know you, but the Council doesn’t agree with me.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Anyone come to visit you besides me?”

Omega says, “Arcee, sometimes. She is also very busy.” He shifts, turning slightly in place to look off to the side. “Drift.”

It takes you a moment to process. You turn too, glancing over your shoulder to where Omega is looking. And— right. You’d almost forgotten he was here. He looks a little trapped, one hand braced on the ground like he was about to get up and go, but he’s frozen now, glancing nervously between you and Omega.

You’re still processing. Omega knows who Drift is. You look back up at him. _“Drift_ has been coming to talk to you?”

“Yes.” Omega pauses for a moment. “Is that wrong?”

Drift hasn’t said a word yet, but the look on his face is basically asking you the same question, and he still looks poised to bolt the moment he gets the opportunity.

Irritably, you wave him forward. “Get up here, I’m not going to keep looking back and forth every time anybody says something.”

His face and field have reluctance written all over them, but he makes his way up to you and sits gingerly on the floor again, a little ways to your side. He doesn’t say anything.

Omega asks, “Are you angry with us?”

“What? No—” You have to pause to press a knuckle between your optics. “Why would I be angry? I’m just— confused. Since when do you two even know each other?”

Drift shifts uneasily, but now he has his field held in tight and controlled and you can’t quite read his expression. “I’d spent a while listening to your conversations, and I got curious. So I figured I’d come around and say hello when he wasn’t busy. Introduce myself.”

“I like talking to Drift,” Omega adds.

Drift flashes him a grin, which— good. If he was bothering Omega or, or you don’t even know, taking advantage of him somehow, _then_ you’d have him thrown out. But you’ve already been spending your days feeling guilty for how little time you can spare for Omega, you ought to be glad he’s making other friends. You _are_ glad. It’s just a surprise. Omega knew Drift’s name before you even did. You’re definitely glad for him, but it’s far outside the realm of anything you’d expected.

You grudgingly say, “What do you talk about?”

“All sorts of things,” Drift says.

“Drift tells me about things in the city,” Omega says at the same time.

You look between them.

Drift adds, “Nothing— political. No politics. Just, you know.” He waves one hand. “Films, the latest serials, whatever I’ve been up to. My training. Just... stuff. Music.”

Omega says, “I like Rosanna.”

It’s not exactly a productive conversation, but trying to wrap your mind around how Drift has somehow given Omega a taste for nova-pop music is much more pleasant than trying to rewrite Omega’s processor by arguing with him. You get out of this visit feeling much more relaxed than you usually do.

Drift trails along behind you to your next appointment too (which ought to have been _Pharma’s_ appointment until a few cycles ago), though he goes back to just lurking silently behind your shoulder and spends his time outside the treatment room, alone, hanging around doing nothing while you talk to your patient. Your usual cloud of mechs still must not have gotten the memo about your new schedule. Drift’s as unobtrusive as he’s always been before, but now a lot more of your attention is on him. If he’s giving Omega more connections, more _friends,_ that’s completely fine by you. But he got to know Omega after spending time watching you. You still have no idea why he’s been watching you in the first place.

Normally, you’d expect him to be looking for something from you. That’s usually what this kind of nonsense is all about. Maybe someone wants you to hook them up with a high-paying government position, maybe they want you to put a good word in on their behalf with the mechs in charge, maybe they want you to introduce them to someone high up in the chain of command. But if Drift wanted something like that, today would have been the perfect opportunity to ask. And instead there he was, acting like he’d rather run than talk when Omega brought him into the conversation.

You’re all set to ask him what he _does_ want, because a mech doesn’t spend this long haunting your days without wanting _something._ You’ve had to shuffle your schedule around a bit to adjust for Pharma being on sudden medical leave, and things are even busier than usual. But the next patient on your schedule is one of your regulars, and isn’t going to take that much work or attention, so you can spare some time for a little conversation.

But as soon as you turn down the hall to the wing towards that treatment room, Drift peels off from you, makes a few quick excuses for sorry, he has to run, forgot he has a visit to pay— and before you can say a word, he hits his wheels and peels off down the hallway.

Huh. Well, if old patterns hold true, he’ll be back tomorrow. Or you can ask Omega when he comes by to talk. For now, you’re planning to focus on the next appointment.

That’s your plan. Until you’re waylaid by Shockwave. You know, you might have thought that changing Blurr’s appointment time would be enough to throw him off, but you shouldn’t really be surprised.

Before he can say a word, you cut him off with, “No, you can’t see him until he’s recovered enough to _agree_ to see you. And there’s no guarantee he’ll agree to that. Like you’ve been told every time this has come up.”

For a mech without much of a face, he does an eerily good job of looking wounded. “I only wished to express concern for my old colleague, and inquire about his progress.”

You are too tired for this slag. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are. You realize that, don’t you?”

Shockwave looms over you, pressing one hand to his chest. “I saved agent Blurr’s life, by bringing him to Autobot High Command—”

“After being the one to almost kill him, yes.”

“—so is it not natural that I should be concerned for his welfare now?”

You sigh, hard. “I’m not having this conversation again. If you think you can wear me down through sheer persistence, you’re wrong. Wait for a message from Blurr, or _don’t bother.”_

He doesn’t press the point—which isn’t exactly reassuring, it probably means he’s planning ways to make a nuisance of himself in the future instead—and only watches you as you continue on down the hallway. You resist the urge to look back at him. At least you don’t have a cluster of hangers-on making this even more irritating than it already is. You’re still _plenty_ angry with Pharma, but the disruption to your usual schedule has some little benefits.

Working on Blurr is quiet. All the delicate work was done after he’d just been brought in, when you and Pharma worked a joint surgery for more than a straight solar cycle, trying to extract and stabilize his spark without disrupting whatever shreds of his system were still keeping him alive. For a while, you weren’t sure he’d make it, but now he’s back in a reconstructed frame, just held in a modified stasis lock while his new processor gradually loads spark memories and rebuilds neural pathways.

All you have to do is check in on Blurr’s progress—slow, but steady—and be sure the rest of his frame is in good shape, and you’re set. He might be waking up here and there within a week or two, but you’re keeping him as a patient until he’s stabilized completely. You’ll have to figure out how to break the news that the war’s over, once that happens. And _then_ you’ll consider telling him that Shockwave is stationed in the main Council annex right this very moment and has been asking after Blurr’s health whenever he gets the chance to corner you.

But for now, you wrap things up before Blurr’s appointment time is over. There’s just not much to do until he’s conscious again and you can run some deeper tests. His frame is stable, his processor looks to be coming back together… and that’s about all you can do. You’re early for your next appointment of the day, but your schedule is already a mess and this next patient isn’t going to be awake to notice, so you head on over to get started.

Rodimus Prime’s room is only a few hallways over, in the treatment wing for infectious diseases. One upside of the war ending is that regardless of how slow everything political might be moving, some of the Decepticon medics have been willing to swap information under the table with Autobot medics. You passed along some experimental alternate treatment methods for Corrodia Gravis, and _Scalpel_ of all mechs sent you back information for diagnosis of early-onset spark burnout when it’s still in its treatable phase. Little things, but it gives you some hope that peace could work out, no matter how unhelpful mechs at the top of the food chain are being.

And Rodimus, he’s an unlucky bot. One of the last casualties of the war, with any luck. But he caught a hit from cosmic rust, which _should_ have been treatable, except for the way he and his team were so far out from Cybertron that it took them weeks to get back. He barely made it here alive. Red Alert mostly stabilized him—she’s a smart kid—but they didn’t have the facilities to synthesize the actual cure, so she was working with experimental treatments, and he was in rough shape by the time they got him back to the planet.

He’s not one of your usual patients, but he’s another one you and Pharma worked on together when things were still real touch and go. Last you heard, he’s still spending most of his time asleep, but it’s starting to look like he’ll pull through. Pharma’s been his primary doctor for a while now—until his little stunt today—so you’re out of touch with the latest developments. You take the time to skim Rodimus’s file and familiarize yourself with all the recent info, which means you’re distracted enough when you get to his room that it takes you a nanoklik too long to realize he’s not alone.

Kup Minor is your first thought, you remember he visited as often as he could when Rodimus first came in. But this bot’s the wrong color, and more polished up than Kup’s been in his whole entire life. You don’t recognize who this is at all for a moment, but— “Drift?”

He jumps, startled, and turns just far enough to give you a guilty look over his shoulder. He half-rises from his seat, saying, “Sorry, sir—Ratchet—I can go—”

You wave him off. “Doesn’t matter. Just don’t distract me while I’m working.”

Drift settles back down very slowly, “I didn’t think anyone was coming by yet. Or that it was you—”

“His doctor had an emergency.” _Caused_ an emergency, more like. “I’m covering for him, just for the moment. Had to shift things around to make it all fit.”

There’s quiet for a few nanokliks. You look over all the monitors they’ve got hooked up to the kid. Looks fine, all things considered, but for recovery from an advanced cosmic rust infection you’re going to do a lot more than check some monitors. You ask, “Has he been awake?”

Drift shifts in place, a note of nervousness in his field. “He— no. He’s been asleep since I got here. He’s usually asleep. Is that okay?”

You look over at him. He smiles at you, but it’s really not doing much of anything to cover the nerves. “I’m not going to bite your head off, kid. I’m just trying to see how he’s been doing.”

“Oh.” Drift slumps a little, letting his optics drop from yours, looking at Rodimus instead.

And— You don’t really want to wade into this, but you have to ask. “Someone been telling you that you can’t visit?”

“What? No—” He cuts himself off, hesitates for a fraction of a nanoklik. “No, I’m allowed to visit him.”

 _Lots_ of mechs in this place aren’t as subtle as they think they are, apparently. “Whatever you’re not telling me, just go ahead and spit it out.”

Drift grins brightly up at you, even though his field doesn’t quite echo the sentiment. “It’s nothing serious, don’t worry. It’s only that he’s _going_ places—word was that he was on the fast track to make Magnus soon—and I’m not exactly—” He pauses. “Not exactly an _advantageous_ connection.”

You try not to groan. Just exactly the kind of thing you _don’t_ need going on in what’s supposed to be a post-war society. And this is frustration you don’t need to be taking out on Drift. “Look, anyone tries to boot you out of here, send them my way and I’ll chew them out for you.”

He laughs and says, “Sure thing.” Though you’re not certain you actually believe he’ll follow through with it.

You turn back to the monitors, going over every single one of the readings, making sure they’re within safe parameters. It’s fairly mindless, tedious work, and after the conversation, the silence feels uncomfortable. You look back over to Drift. “You two are friends, then?”

There’s a moment of hesitation. “Yes,” he says. “Rodimus used to train with Dai Atlas sometimes, so we met, and we… got along.”

“Seems to be how making friends usually goes,” you say, your voice the slightest bit dry.

Drift laughs again, more genuinely this time. “He got stationed off-planet eventually, but we were still able to exchange comms sometimes. But then—” he gestures at Rodimus and his smile fades. “You know. _This.”_

You make a sympathetic noise as you turn back to the medical equipment. “Well, he’s nearly out of the danger zone. With any luck he’ll be spending more time awake soon.”

“Mmhm.”

When you sneak a sideways glance over at Drift, he doesn’t exactly look like that makes him feel any better. And there’s only so much conversation you can make about a mech you’ve never properly met. You queue up a series of scans for Rodimus—you need to make sure you’ve cleared all traces of rust from his internals—and set those running. And then you turn back to Drift.

You say, “So you’ve told me why you’re spending time with Rodimus. But now I need to know. Why’ve you been following _me_ around?”

Drift looks up at you, startled, and there’s a brief flash of alarm in his field before he suppresses it. Then he grins brilliantly and says, “Haven’t you guessed? Obviously I only want you for your body.”

You sigh and press a knuckle between your optics. “Kid.”

His grin gets even wider. “You don’t believe me? Why wouldn’t I mean that? You’ve got excellent taste in colors, if I do say so myself. You’ve got a wonderfully stocky build, nice and solid, and you even have some dramatic battle scars—”

_“Kid.”_

It’s obvious he’s trying to push your buttons, but the thing is, with him being raised on Decepticon standards, you’re not even sure if he means that all in a sarcastic or a sincere way.  And when you look at him watching you, this is clearly the face of a mech trying not to burst into laughter. He’s going to be a real pain in your aft if you give him half a chance.

You shake your head. “Don’t you go trying to tell me I’m pretty when there’s _real_ solid mechs like General Strika out and about in the universe.”

That startles a laugh out of him. “But you’re an _attainable_ pretty.”

“So I’m pretty, but not too pretty?” You cross your arms and frown, but you’re sure it’s obvious there’s not much heat in it. “Funny how I can’t tell if you’re trying to compliment me or not.”

His optics are still sparkling as he grins up at you, and you give in and chuckle once as you turn back to the scan results. They’re all coming up clean so far, which is about what you expected, and another good sign for Rodimus’s recovery. There’s plenty of scans still to go, but if there was a lingering infection, you probably would have seen signs of it by now.

The quiet stretches for a few nanokliks, and Drift says, slowly, “You’re close to Optimus Prime.”

You glance over at him. “Sure. And what about it? You looking for favors?”

“What? No—” He looks down at his hands where they’re clasped in his lap, frowning. “You’re close to the truce. It’s still— There aren’t many Autobots who have worked with Decepticons at all.”

“There are some.”

“But not many. And most of them are stationed away from Cybertron right now.”

You’re still studying Drift, but he’s keeping his optics firmly on his hands. You say, “You aiming for an off-world posting? Or you could try talking to some of the Decepticons on Cybertron.”

His head jerks up and he stares at you. After a moment he laughs, and you try not to wince. “No, sorry,” he says. “I’m not explaining well. To half the mechs out there, I’m a traitor. To the other half, I’m probably about to turn traitor at any moment.”

You frown, setting your scanner down and turning to him. “Drift—”

He waves you off. “No, that’s just how things are. I knew from the start what I was signing up for. But I wasn’t ever expecting _peace._ I’m interested in…” He looks off to the side. His hands are still in his lap, his fingers locked tight together. “The intersection of Autobots and Decepticons. How they are together.”

The scanner beeps at you, and you glance down at it. All scan results completed, all systems clean. You turn your focus back to Drift. “And how do I play into all that?”

The look he gives you is faintly amused. “Did you know that in Decepticon optics, you’re the most trustworthy Autobot medic currently practicing?”

_“What.”_

“No, really!” He laughs once. “The gossip is something else. Not that I’m hearing it directly, but everyone says that if you’re in this system and you can’t see a Decepticon doctor, try to get treated by Ratchet if you can possibly manage it. Haven’t you noticed how many one-time Decepticon patients you get? I’ve been listening to the bots who come by looking to talk to you, and I think that’s part of why so many people are convinced you’ve got some real power to do favors. Apparently Oil Slick even vouched for you, which would usually be a mark _against_ you rather than _for_ you, but I suppose everything is all turned around with people trying to get used to peace.”

You’re reeling, trying to process that. All you can manage to say is, “That’s ridiculous.”

Drift is grinning outright now and adds, “You once treated _Megatron,_ and didn’t even try a little to kill him. People remember that kind of thing.”

“I’m not going to kill a patient on my operating table,” you say, your voice distant. “Besides, that was after Optimus already trusted him.”

He just shrugs, still grinning. “You spend time every day convincing the last surviving Omega Sentinel not to kill Decepticons. Like I said. You’re close to the truce.”

You frown at him, trying to scrape your words together into some sort of coherent reply.

Then Drift adds, “And you’re _extremely_ pretty.”

 _Right, then._ You’re ignoring him for a few kliks after that, and maybe after a little time has passed, you’ll have some idea of what to even say.

But barely a klik later, he stands up and says, “If I wait any longer, I’ll be late to meet with Dai Atlas. I’ll see you tomorrow, perhaps?” And before you can give that a proper answer, he’s already gone.

The rest of your day keeps you too busy to think much about… everything. You’ve got a few more patients of Pharma’s to handle, plus what was already a very full schedule. Though now that you’re looking for it, you _do_ realize how many Decepticons have specifically signed up for appointments with you in comparison to any of the other Autobot doctors stationed locally.

By the time you wrap everything up for the day, you’re too tired to even consider thinking about what Drift told you, not without a few defrag cycles. You barely even remember falling onto your recharge slab. And when you wake up in the morning, you’ve barely got time for a quick cube of energon before you have to rush to your first appointment.

That first appointment is Pharma, and now that he’s out of danger, you give him a healthy piece of your mind while you run checks on his whole frame. He’s still _completely_ unrepentant, and keeps interrupting you with little tidbits that he learned while doing the surgery on himself, power differential this, and systems integration that, and it’s all useful information (not enough to justify using himself as a test subject, but still useful), but you don’t let him distract you while you lay out every single reason that this was a bad idea.

Still. Even though it took emergency medical intervention, he’s doing surprisingly well for even a single day of recovery. His work on his frame was done perfectly, which is exactly what you’d expect from him. Unfortunately, the complete lack of remorse is exactly what you’d expect too, and when he finally apologizes for being so _terribly_ irresponsible, you’re almost certain that he’s teasing you much more than he actually means it.

And even though you’d been almost sure it would take days for him to recover enough to go back to his patients, you… reluctantly approve him for a return to work. A _partial_ return. You don’t have any reason to hold him back, other than spite. He casually passes every cognitive and physical test you give him. And you’re short-staffed enough that you can’t justify it as a plain punishment. You might be angry that you approve him to go back to work at all, but you still do it.

Besides, in some ways, sending Pharma back to his rounds is a relief. You can’t manage many days like yesterday, not before you start worrying that you’re stretched so thin you’ll make mistakes and do real damage. And if what Drift said is true, and you’ve got a reputation with the Decepticons venturing back to the planet, you can’t afford to make a stupid mistake and throw away that goodwill— And you’re thinking about this again.

You’re half-waiting for Drift to put on an appearance all morning and explain himself, and get more and more irritated the longer it takes for him to show up. The other mechs who wander in looking to have a word with you must catch your mood—good, since unless you’re with patients you aren’t making any effort to hide it—because the moment their fields brush against yours they make vague, weak excuses and make themselves scarce. You spend the whole morning expecting Drift whenever someone new comes by, but it’s never him, and the irritation just gets worse every time.By the time you head to the docking bays to see Omega, you’re seething, even though you’re aware that isn’t exactly a fair reaction.

But the moment you get into the bay, you see Omega sitting in root mode with Drift in front of him, talking, and your bad mood pops like it was just punctured. You almost want to know what they were talking about, without them knowing you’re here, but by the time you have that thought, Omega is already looking up towards you and Drift is turning to see who’s arrived.

So you just make your way across the floor and settle down next to Drift. You sigh heavily, letting your optics drift offline. You’ve been on your feet all morning, and your struts aren’t what they used to be. When you bring your optics online again, Drift and Omega are both looking at you expectantly, and a large part of you wants to just have another aimless nothing conversation the way you did yesterday, but you wouldn’t be doing right by Omega if you didn’t work on getting him cleared to travel again.

So instead you say, “Sorry, Omega, I’m afraid it’s time for one of _those_ talks again.”

He says, “Yes, Ratchet,” which doesn’t really make you feel better about the whole production.

Drift shifts, beginning to push up to his feet, but you reach out with one hand and stop him. “Don’t bother moving if you don’t want to,” you say. “Might as well stay here, if you’re already his friend and everything.”

He looks a bit unsure, but settles down beside you again, crossing his legs and looking over at you as he waits for you to start.

You sigh. “Right, then. Let’s talk about Decepticons.”

The conversation doesn’t get far. It never really does. Omega patiently listens and takes in everything you say, but when you try to get him to explain it back to you, it’s depressing how smoothly things always slide back into the faction-oriented standards the Council built into his processor. Autobots are good. Decepticons are bad. He will protect Autobots from Decepticons. And so on. A statement as simple as ‘not all Decepticons are bad’ runs headlong into his core programming, and you _wish_ Perceptor hadn’t removed all his own emotions so you could bring him down here and make him _understand_ what he’s done.

Today you manage to work yourself into a dead end where Omega thinks you’re telling him to _lie_ about what he believes in, rather than trying to change his mind, and you have to backtrack hard away from that before the idea can sink in too deep. Once you manage to convince him that wasn’t what you were trying to say, you’re exhausted and your head is aching.

Drift has been perfectly silent sitting next to you, with even his field so still and quiet you could almost forget he’s here. Now he shifts and says, “Ratchet, can I—?”

You don’t even know what he’s asking, but you wave a hand at him. “Go ahead.”

Drift looks up at Omega and says, “Omega, you’re my friend. Am I your friend?”

Omega says, “Of course.”

“Did you know I used to be a Decepticon?”

That makes Omega pause. “No.” He bends forward a little, looking more closely at Drift. “You are an Autobot.”

“I am,” Drift agrees. His voice is perfectly controlled and calm, but you can feel the anxiety bleeding out into his field. “But I was a Decepticon before. Does that mean you still should treat me like a Decepticon? Or if you met me a long time ago, should you have treated me like an Autobot, since I became one eventually?”

For a long moment, Omega doesn’t speak. Then he says, “You are an Autobot now.”

“Don’t get too abstract,” you tell Drift in an undertone.

He nods once and says. “I’m an Autobot now. And I’m your friend now.”

“Yes.”

“What would you do if I decided to be a Decepticon again?”

You’re glad nobody else is here today. You suppose that if anyone _had_ been here, Drift wouldn’t be having this conversation. To all appearances, he still looks perfectly at ease. He’s speaking calmly, like this is just a normal everyday conversation, but you’re close enough to feel the way his anxiety is edging closer to fear.

Omega still hasn’t answered. He stares at Drift, and then slowly repeats, “You are an Autobot now.”

“I might not be one tomorrow,” Drift says. “Autobots have switched factions before. If I did that, would I still be your friend? Or would you kill me?”

You place a hand on Drift’s leg to get his attention. Too softly for Omega to hear, you say, “You don’t have to keep going. That’s enough for one day.” He flashes a quick, wobbly grin at you and you feel the rush of relief in his field as he turns to look back at Omega.

Omega watches Drift, frowning, for long enough you start worrying he might glitch out or crash. If that’s the case, interrupting his processing now might help— or it might just make things worse. You haven’t quite decided what to do when finally Omega says, “You are my friend. I don’t want to kill you.”

Right, that’s a good ending point. You cut in with, “You can stop there, Omega. You don’t have to keep worrying about this right now.”

He doesn’t protest, which is good, but he’s still… distracted while you spend the rest of your time with him making meaningless small talk. You let Drift chatter about new films that have been released and tell Omega about Dai Atlas’s other students, but you keep an optic on Omega, and that frown never quite leaves his face. He says goodbye to both of you easily enough, and as you go, he folds down into alt mode in the bay, resting there as a ship.

Drift doesn’t say much as the two of you make your way back to the medical center, but now that you’re looking for it, you can feel the edge of stress in his field. He smiles cheerfully enough when you glance back at him, and it’s subtle enough that you _could_ easily miss it, but it’s definitely there.

So you say, “You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”

He grins. “Not a terrible mistake, then? That’s good, I would have felt awful if I accidentally provoked him into undoing all your hard work.”

For now, you decide not to push it. You’re not sure how much he thinks you didn’t notice versus how much he just doesn’t want to talk about, and you’re pretty sure that’s exactly how he wants it.

After a moment he adds, “Want a repeat performance tomorrow? I’ll have to speak to my personal assistant, but I _may_ be able to spare you the time.”

You snort. “We’ll see. That was good, no doubt about that, but I’m not going to push him too hard or fast.” You give him a sideways look. “Or you.”

“Me? Ratchet, please, I was _built_ for the stage.”

It’s not a particularly good deflection, but you let it slide. You go right ahead and change the subject altogether. “You running off to visit Rodimus again? Or are you tagging along to my next appointment?”

You’re back in the familiar, worn hallways of the medical center now, heading to see Blurr as Drift follows. He starts to say. “I don’t need to go—” There’s a momentary pause as you turn down the hall toward Blurr’s room, and he smoothly changes course. “—I don’t need to go bothering you all day long. I’ll pay that visit and catch up with you later, perhaps?”

“I’m not working with Rodimus anymore, I won’t—” And… he’s gone. You’ve got no clue how much of that he heard.

Though you don’t get much of a chance to think about it, because it’s only a few nanokliks later when Shockwave turns out from a side hallway a few doors down, and makes his way over to you as though you might _possibly_ believe this just happened to be a completely coincidental encounter.

“The next time you pull this stunt,” you say, “I’m telling Blurr that you’ve been harassing the medical staff while he’s been unconscious.”

He’s trying to do the wounded thing again. “By expressing my best wishes for his speedy recovery?”

“By _stalking his doctor.”_ You stop and rub your optics. “Look, you spent long enough on the planet to know better than this. If lurking around waiting to apologize for attempted murder is a nice gesture for Decepticons, it’s not going to read that way to Autobots. Figure out what might be a _little_ better than this. I don’t know, gifts, a card, literally anything else. Go ahead and loom at me all you want, but it’s not going to get you anywhere, and it won’t win you points with Blurr.”

You leave him behind you again, staring silently at you as you make your way down the hall to Blurr’s room. You hope for everyone’s sake that this is meant as a friendly platonic apology for attempted murder and not… something else, but you really truly have no idea. And you realize the mistake you made with your advice when halfway through your visit, a crew of delivery mechs arrives laden down with piles of electro-flowers for delivery to the room of Agent Blurr of the Elite Guard. And a card. Which says, “Apologies for the attempted murder.”

You really don’t know what you expected.

After that, you keep an optic out for Drift, but he doesn’t come back around. There’s plenty of other mechs crowding around when there’s the smallest little break in your schedule, talking about how if you could just mention their name to the Magnus, or they’ve always thought they’d be suited to a position as a diplomat, or would you terribly mind introducing them to Optimus Prime, they can make it worth your while—

You find yourself wishing that Drift _was_ around, because then you’d have at least one person here whose main priority _isn’t_ to be a self-serving aft. Or at the very least you’d have someone who knows how to follow you without getting underfoot at every turn and making it impossible for you to do your job.

The last patient of the day is a bulky Decepticon warbuild with stripped gears all up and down one of her arms. While you work through all the replacements, she watches the cluster of mechs waiting in the hallway through the window set in the room’s wall, with a distinct air of amusement in her field.

By now, you’re annoyed enough that you ask her, “Do medics have to put up with this slag where you’re from?”

You’ve got your optics on your work, but she shifts, looking down at you. The way she gets a kick out of your suffering is even more obvious now. “No. But I don’t expect most medics here do either.”

It irritates you even more, because it’s true. The Decepticon chuckles as you fit her plating back onto her arm, low and deep in her frame. When you’re done, she stands and flexes the arm, rotating it back and forth.

“Much better,” she says. She turns slightly, glancing at the mechs outside, who are all realizing that you’re almost finished with your patient. She looks down at you again, all of her optics glittering with amusement. “Want me to whisk you away from it all, make a night of it?”

The offer is… more tempting than it has any right to be. Still— Reluctantly, you shake your head. “Too much work. I still need to be able to stand in the morning.”

She laughs outright and says, “Fair enough. Look me up sometime, when standing isn’t so much of an issue.”

At least she’s large enough that when she leaves the room, she scatters the cloud of hovering mechs. They all press to the walls to let her by, and _you_ go right ahead and follow along in her wake, breezing past have the crowd before they realize you’re going. By the time they catch on, they’re behind you and you’ve got space to transform and drive off to your room so you can collapse into the berth.

You don’t quite collapse, but you come close. You down a cube of energon without tasting it, and you’re pretty sure you fall asleep before you’re quite all the way horizontal. You wake up feeling maybe… half-recharged. If you’re being generous. Whatever, you can catch up later. For now, you sprinkle some extra additives into your morning energon and head on off to your first appointment.

Pharma is doing well enough that you give up and approve him for a full return to work. He doesn’t need this kind of positive reinforcement for pulling slag like giving himself a major unauthorized refit, but his power system and processor have perfectly stabilized, adjusting to the new frame doesn’t affect his hands, and he’s impatient to be busy again. And during the appointment you receive two slightly plaintive messages from other medics stationed here, asking how much longer they’ll have to juggle the increased workload.

 _Fine._ You give up. Pharma has his wings, and he has his job. You’re glad _someone_ here is happy. Though as he’s brushing invisible specks of dust off his frame, and obviously preening over his new wings, he’s still keeping up a conversation with you asking about what developments with this patient or that, getting back up to speed on everything he missed. And when he heads for the door to go off to his first appointment of the day, he winks one optic at you and tosses you a file over comms. He’s already written up a full report on the reformat process he developed for himself and an analysis of the aftereffects on his frame. You shouldn’t be surprised, really, but you are distracted enough that you nearly miss the way he edges through the door, turned completely sideways, keeping his wings carefully angled away from the walls.

You read the paper as you head through the halls. It’s a convenient excuse to ignore the hopeful couple of mechs who wanted to catch you early. Maybe they thought you’d be in a better mood at the beginning of the day. _Ha._

Though two appointments later, you _do_ nod hello to Drift when he joins the group. He grins at you and slips easily past the other mechs, so that he’s walking right behind your shoulder. And unlike the others, he isn’t trying to get your attention to ask for favors. So you go right ahead and say, “Your personal assistant kept your schedule clear, I take it?”

There are little flashes of confusion from some of the other mechs around you, but you ignore them. Drift looks confused too for a moment. He resets his optics once, slowly, before he remembers. Then he laughs. “I left a trail of disappointed mechs in my wake, but of course you know I could never bear to let you down.”

You snort. “Of course.”

It’s a pleasant change of pace from the other mechs who’ve been trying to talk to you. Though you’re feeling some confusion and frustration from them now, and you wince a little, internally, hoping they’re not about to try taking that out on Drift. If they _do,_ least then you’ve got a good excuse to throw them out, permanently, but it’s not like you want things to get to that point in the first place.

When you go into your next appointment, there’s no window in this room, but you keep some attention on the fields you can feel from outside the door. Hopefully if there’s trouble, you’ll get a little forewarning. But it seems like things aren’t too bad. You think you can pick Drift’s field out of the mix, after spending a bit of time together, and something about it feels… wobbly. But he doesn’t feel upset, and the annoyance you’re feeling from the other bots never gets past being just a low-key background emotion, so you try to keep your attention on your work and your patient.

Once that appointment is wrapped up and you head out of the room, your little entourage has grown. Wonderful. You look around to see if Drift is still here, because that’ll be at least one person who _isn’t_ actively making your job harder, and at first, you think he’s gone. Except you can still feel his field— It takes you a moment, but you finally spot him off to the side, leaned against the wall, his head tilted back and his optics offline. And his field still feels _off_ in that undefinable way that you can’t quite pin down. But as you watch, his optics flicker on and he straightens, grinning at you.

You frown a little, wondering what’s going on there. Might be nothing, but— Still. And when Drift pushes upright and sways unsteadily for a moment before finding his balance, you frown a little harder. You’re not going to corner him in front of a crowd and demand answers, but you’re definitely planning to ask him a few questions when you get the chance.

And conveniently, it’s time for Omega’s appointment. When you head to the docking bays, still persistently ignoring everyone who asks you for favors, or for a job, or for an introduction, most of the other mechs in the crowd melt away. You’d think that after so long without any luck getting you to listen, they’d get a clue, but no. Though this might be a sign of just how much influence they _think_ you have. You… might need to do something about this. You’ve always avoided politics as hard as you possibly could, but you have to know _someone_ who’ll help you out with these pests.

You leave the last mech behind at the entrance to Omega’s docking bay, and when the door shuts behind you, it’s just you and Drift arriving for the visit. And you’re noticing how Drift’s gait is uneven and his optics are very slightly flickering, and his field isn’t feeling any better than before, so you’re definitely planning to take the time to see what’s going on before you try wrestling with Omega’s situation again.

But that all goes flying from your processor when you see Omega, who’s sitting in root mode and isn’t even properly acknowledging you’re there, just looking despondently down at his hands.

So you pick up the pace a bit, cross that last bit of distance so you can get close enough to rest a hand against his leg. “Omega? What’s wrong?”

Now he looks at you. But there’s still a long moment of silence. You can feel Drift hovering behind you, you can feel his alarm, but he doesn’t say a word either. Finally, Omega says, “Are you going to become a Decepticon?”

“What? _Absolutely not.”_

But Omega doesn’t look very reassured, and besides, you’re not leaving something like _that_ hanging without figuring out exactly where it came from. Your attention is all on Omega and finding the right questions to step your way backwards through his processing to see exactly how he reached that conclusion. It’s not helping that Omega doesn’t really want to talk about it. You don’t want to push him too hard, but you also don’t want to let that idea sit and rust inside his processor, especially right now, when you can’t spend nearly as much time with him as you wish. After a few kliks, you hear Drift sit and settle on the floor of the bay, but almost all your attention is on Omega and you don’t go to join him yet.

The explanation— It takes a while to reassure Omega enough for him to share, but you finally work it out. You feel like you should have seen this coming, but you’re also not sure how you would have ever guessed it. You’ve been spending weeks trying to persuade Omega that Decepticons aren’t as bad as he was built to believe. You’re both tied down here as long as Omega thinks Decepticons are the enemy—Which isn’t something you’ve said to him outright, but he’s clearly connected the dots.

And then Drift raised the question of what Omega would do if one of his friends became a Decepticon. You can’t shake the guilty feeling you should have realized something like this might happen. You haven’t been angry with him, not at all, but he knows he’s spent weeks not understanding the point you’re trying to teach him. You should have _realized—_

It doesn’t matter. You could have realized before. But you’re going to fix it _now._ It takes some time to cover every angle you can think of, but you’re not going to be sloppy about this. No, you’re not angry with him, no, none of his friends plan to join the Decepticons, no, you’re not planning to _leave him behind_ if he doesn’t understand what you’re trying to teach quickly enough. And so on. And it’s not just about covering that ground, it’s about making sure, making _absolutely certain_ that Omega really believes the reassurances you’re giving him.

By the time you feel like things are back on an even keel, you’re completely exhausted. It’s not like you’ve been getting the recharge you need to begin with, and having to wrestle with Omega’s core programming is already one of the most draining parts of your life. You pat the side of his leg one last time before you finally step back. You’re not going to try working on the main issue with the rest of the time you have together today. Even if you were feeling up to it, it would be unkind to keep pushing Omega so hard after a scare like that. Not that you exactly feel up to casual conversation right now either.

You turn to Drift, hoping that he’ll understand what you’re looking for without you needing to string too many words together. But the half-formed request dies in your vocalizer the moment you get a good look at him. He’s sitting on the floor, and with the way he’s slumped forward with his optics offline, you could almost think he was dozing. Except then there’s the way he’s listing so far to the side he’s almost tipped over, and the way you can hear his fans screaming even from this distance.

“Drift,” you say. And there’s no response. More sharply, you repeat, _“Drift.”_

His head shoots up and he’s trying to grin at you, but it’s undermined by how he’s swaying in place and the way his optics are completely unfocused. “I’m fine,” he says, a beat too late, and obviously untrue.

You go over to him and take a knee. Ignoring his protests, you catch one of his hands and put your other hand on his shoulder, easing him backwards until he’s lying flat on the floor instead of trying to keep himself upright. Omega is bending over the two of you, but you can’t spare any attention for him right now. You’re kneeling beside Drift, and from this close, you don’t even need to be touching his frame to feel how hot he’s running, and his optics are flickering unevenly. His field is a mess, and you can’t pick much out of it except for how sick he feels. You can even hear little glitchy harmonics in his voice that shouldn’t be there as he tries to argue that this isn’t a big deal, that he’s _fine,_ just give him a moment—

“I’m going to need you to boot down your optics,” you tell him. His left optic is strobing now, strong enough it makes you want to wince. He’s going to start blowing pathways if this gets any worse. You let go of his hand so you can flip open an access panel on his arm. “Vocalizer too, while you’re at it. Shut it down. Run your fans low, minimize power to all nonessential systems. Can you do that for me?”

He isn’t completely out of it, because he does frown at that. “Shut down? Won’t that—?” For a moment you think he’s about to pass out, but he shakes his head and tries again. “Bad. Right?”

“It _would_ be bad,” you tell him, “except I’m getting ready to dump all that extra power into my systems so it doesn’t do any damage in yours.”

Drift frowns a little harder, but you’re busy drawing out a cable from your hip and hooking it up to the main port on his arm. You ping him for access, but he doesn’t give it to you.

 _“Your_ systems,” he says, looking down at your cable. “It’ll. Won’t it?” He boots down his optics for a nanoklik and runs a quick vent cycle, then visibly collects himself and smiles up at you. “Ratchet, I’m fine! Give me a moment and I’ll be back on my feet. I should have gotten more recharge last night, that’s all.”

“Mmhm.” You ping him for access again, but he’s still not letting you through. “Drift, I’m designed for this. You’re not going to hurt me. But if you keep overclocking your frame like that, you _are_ going to hurt yourself.”

He still looks like he wants to argue, but this time, he lets you in and grants you full access. Right away, you start drawing off all the excess charge he’s carrying, dumping it into a spare power cell. It’s more than you expected, enough to sting. You doubt you’ll run into anyone needing a jumpstart anytime soon, so you’ll need to find a place to toss that later, but that can wait until you’re done dealing with the emergency.

You shut down Drift’s optics for him, then get a move on shutting down his nonessential peripheral systems one after another. When you start taking his servos offline, he fights you for a moment until he can grab for your hand, but other than that, he doesn’t resist. You can monitor his systems much more effectively from the inside, but you still keep some attention on his field. And he’s feeling less and less unwell the more you shut down, which is good, you’d be real worried if this wasn’t helping. You leave him online, but take him down to the bare minimum. His processor is still awake, but he’s only got passive sensors and the connection with you to give him any inputs right now.

And then you let him boot up. Gradually, like he’s coming out of a recharge cycle. You monitor the power flow in his systems, bringing up the rough specs for what you should expect from this frametype. He hits that… and keeps climbing. About what you’d expected, but now that you’re in here, watching the direct output from his spark, you’re getting a pretty good idea _why_ this is happening.

So this is a problem that isn’t going to go away on its own, but it’s a lot less urgent right this moment, so you don’t rush all this subsystems back online, you let them reinitialize naturally, in their own time. It’s still not long, in the grand scheme of things, but it gives you a few nanokliks to send Omega a quick update letting him know you and Drift are fine.

Drift’s field is radiating embarrassment by the time his optics boot back up. He resets them once, and you’re close enough to see them dilate and refocus— _evenly_ this time—as he adjusts to the light. By then he’s already starting to push his way upright and grinning up at you. He says, “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to make you go to the trouble. It just happens every so often, it’s not a big deal—”

You unhook your cable from his port, but you still keep one hand on his arm as he sits up, ready to catch him if his vestibular system is lagging. “Happens every so often, does it?”

He laughs. “Occasionally? I shouldn’t have said—”

“How occasionally _is_ ‘occasionally?’”

For a moment he pauses and looks at you, still smiling, then shrugs. “Not often. Usually I’d have realized sooner and spent the day at home. It’s just…” He gestures vaguely. “Just a minor annoyance”

“Mm.” He’s not showing a hint of unease in his face or his field, even as you let the silence stretch out, so he might not have much common sense, but he’s got some real struts. You’re not sure he understands why this is happening or just how serious it is, but you _are_ sure he knows he just overclocked his frame so hard he almost passed out.

After a nice long pause, you sigh and say, “This is a relatively new issue, I’m assuming?”

He shrugs. “Oh, you know—”

“I’m going to go right ahead and assume it happened for the first time after you came to Cybertron?”

The smile still hasn’t dropped from Drift’s face, but now it freezes, along with the rest of his frame.

And that’s all the answer you really need, so you’re not going to draw this out longer than you have to. “This frame isn’t going to work for you. Your spark power output is too high. You’re going to need a transplant, and the sooner the better.”

For a moment, his field is pure, raw horror, strong enough that even Omega rocks back slightly. And then it abruptly cuts off, all of it. He’s not really managing a smile, but he’s holding his field in too tight for you to read without pushing.

You sigh again, accessing the schedules for all the on-site doctors. You’d want to handle this yourself, you think, unless Drift has another surgeon he’d prefer. Things are still tense enough that cross-faction treatment is only being done by request from a small pool of fully vetted medics, and Drift’s treatment will effectively be cross-faction no matter who works with him. “We’re going to want to match the power demands of your original frame as closely as we can. Honestly, we’re going to want to rebuild your original frame if we can. I’m assuming you still have the schematics in your files? We can—”

“Ratchet,” starts Drift, a bit too loud. He tries again. “Ratchet.” He does his best to smile, but it’s wobbly and he can’t quite manage to hold it. “Frame transplants aren’t that uncommon. I’m sure this— I’ve known mechs whose new frames wouldn’t be the same power draw as their old ones. I don’t need a Decepticon frame.”

You frown at him. If you shuffle a few of your patients off on other doctors, you might be able to free up the second half of tomorrow for surgery. But you’ll need to clear time on later days too, to monitor his recovery. This is going to be much more significant than Pharma’s little adventure, and it’s going to take some time to be sure his spark is integrating properly with the new frame.

And you can feel flickers of distress leaking out in his field, getting stronger with every moment you don’t answer him. But you can see how hard he’s trying to hold onto his composure. He says, “This is only an inconvenience. Really! I don’t mind putting up with one bad day every few months, I’d rather have _that_ instead of— I do like this body, I don’t want a different one. Couldn’t a doctor just, just do what you did for me? I could schedule those appointments to stay ahead of it myself?”

The hope in his voice makes you wince. And even before you start shaking your head, you can see his face fall. “With every one of those bad days— Even before you reach the bad days, even if you go to a doctor to draw off that excess power, you’re still putting this frame under more stress than it was built to handle. Which puts your _spark_ under more stress than it was built to handle. It all adds up, kid. You don’t want to think about how young your spark is going to burn itself out if you keep letting it do this.”

“I’m not a _kid,”_ he says, sharply. “I’m not young. Ratchet, I— I might not have realized everything that was happening, but—”

For a moment you wait for him to continue, but he only shakes his head, looking down into his lap. You reach out and put a hand on his arm. “It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? You could get back in a frame like you were forged with. Did you have wings before? Might feel good to get back in the air after so long on the ground.”

Drift takes a shuddering ventilation and says, “No. I don’t need to fly.”

“There are flying Autobots now,” you press. “It wouldn’t have to mean anything. And if society keeps integrating the way Optimus is hoping for, it’ll be even less unusual to see an Autobot in the air.”

“No, that’s—” His vocalizer cuts out. He sits up straight again, optics dimmed, and you feel him pulling his field back under his control. His voice is very level when he says, “It wasn’t an easy decision to become an Autobot, but it means more to me than any other decision I’ve ever made. Thank you for your advice, but I don’t want to sacrifice these things I’ve worked for in favor of convenience.”

For a moment, you don’t know what to say. What you _should_ say. But— “Convenience? This frame is literally killing you.”

“Possibly.”

 _“Definitely._ Drift— I’m a doctor. I can’t in good conscience ignore this problem and agree with you that nothing’s wrong. The advice I’m trying to give is that you need surgery as soon as possible. Every day you stay in that frame is shaving time off your life."

His face spasms. “I can’t— Ratchet. Please—” His voice glitches out for a nanoklik. “Anything but a Decepticon frame. Please. _Anything_ else. I just _can’t—”_

His voice chokes off. He glances toward the docking bay door for a moment, and you look too. There’s nobody there, but you’re suddenly very aware of how easy it would be for someone to walk in on this conversation.

You look up, toward Omega. You ask him, “Any chance you might be able to give the two of us a place to talk?”

He nods once before folding down into alt mode, a door into the ship sliding open before he’s even completely transformed. You climb to your feet. Drift looks much better than he did before, but you still reach down to take his hands and help him up as he stands, just in case one of his systems glitches out. You’re studying his frame much more closely now, everything from the temperature readings you get through your hands to the noise you can hear from his fans. Nothing seems wrong now. It _wouldn’t,_ after a power dump like the one you just dealt with, but you know, intellectually, his spark is already overclocking his frame, and the strain is slowly building up towards his next collapse.

Drift avoids your optics. As soon as he’s upright, he takes his hands from yours. He’s holding his field in tight, and you’re trying not to pry, but just his face tells you plenty about how he’s feeling. So you turn away, giving him a little space, and lead the way into Omega.

You’ve missed this. Most of your processing is taken up with Drift right now, but it’s impossible to avoid thinking of how badly you’ve missed being here. It still doesn’t feel… quite right. Not this empty, not without the possibility that Optimus or one of the others might burst in on you at any moment. But this isn’t the time to be worrying about that. You just head to the common area, listening as Drift trails behind you. You take a seat and wait for him to do the same.

He hesitates for a nanoklik before he sits down, across from you. His shoulders hunch, miserably, and he’s still not quite looking at your face.

When it seems like he isn’t planning to speak first, you sigh and say, “If you’re completely opposed to medical intervention… nobody can force you into it.”

Drift still doesn’t say anything. He stares down at his hands. Finally, slowly, he says, “But you think medical intervention is necessary.”

“I do.” You press a knuckle between your optics and power them down for a nanoklik. You’re too tired to do this conversation justice. “I think without a transplant frame, you’ll be dying much younger than you should. I understand _why_ you don’t want a new body, but I don’t think it’s worth throwing away so much of your life. But I still can’t force you to agree to surgery.”

He’s quiet, though his control has slipped enough that you can feel his emotions beating against your field. You do your best to be polite and ignore everything he’s trying not to show you. He’s outwardly still, but you can feel his field churning.

It’s almost a whole klik before he says, “You don’t think any other treatment will be… enough.”

“It’ll help, probably. But it won’t be as much as you’re hoping.”

His optics dim, and he brings up a hand to cover his face. You look off to the side, give him a little space. “Sizing up a bit wouldn’t necessarily mark you out as a Decepticon. Some Autobots run large on their own.” You pat the seat beside you. “We’ve got Omega here. And Ultra’s been large since he was forged. He didn’t get rebuilt that large, it’s all natural.”

Drift’s field settles a little, and from the corner of your optic you see his hand drop far enough for him to look at you. “But there aren’t many Autobots that size. It’d still be… unusual.”

“You want to blend in,” you say, without stopping to think before running your mouth. You try not to wince visibly and look back towards Drift. He smiles, faint and crooked, and shrugs without saying a word.

You sigh and lean back in your seat, staring up at the ceiling as you think. “Health-wise, it’d be best if we put you in your original frame—which isn’t going to happen if you don’t want it, don’t worry. But even if we don’t size up that far, even if we don’t match those exact specs, there’s other things we can do to nudge the power draw upward.” It means you won’t be building for any kind of efficiency, which means you’ll need to work with a custom frame. After you’ve put out this fire, you want to track down whatever doctor put Drift in this frame, just popped him into a standard medium-size Autobot frame without even _thinking_ about possible long-term effects.

You’re distracted, thinking about where to you’d build those extra power demands into a system like Drift’s, so it takes you a moment to process it when he just takes a long, slow ventilation, and says, “Okay.”

When your processor _does_ catch up, you sit upright, looking sharply at him. “What?”

“Okay,” he repeats. He manages to smile at you. “As long as— It won’t be a Decepticon frame? I won’t _look_ like—?”

“No.” It might be better if it _was_ a Decepticon frame, but you’re not going to keep hammering that point when you can tell plain enough how he feels. You add, “Would you be willing to share access to your original schematics? Just to be sure we’ve got an accurate picture of the load your frame should be placing on your spark.”

He grins a little wider, though it’s wobbly and forced. “I’d rather not.”

You raise your hands in surrender. “Fine by me, just thought I’d ask.”

Drift doesn’t say anything in reply, just sighs heavily and looks down at his hands again.

You’re a little distracted yourself, accessing the hospital facility schedules, checking on material stores—shouldn’t be an issue, but you aren’t sure if supply chains are disrupted right now—planned access to the manufacturing facilities, surgical equipment, _staff_ schedules—

You ask, “Do you have a doctor you’d prefer to use? I can’t guarantee they’re free, especially if they’re at a different facility, but I’d like to take care of this as soon as possible and we should be able to shift appointments for an urgent surgery like this.”

His head snaps up and he freezes for a moment. Then, cautiously, he says, “It won’t be… you?”

It’s your turn to hesitate. “It… can be. If that’s what you want. Unless you have a doctor you have more history with, or one you trust with a surgery like this.”

“No.” Drift smiles crookedly and shrugs one shoulder. “I trust you.”

You end up leaving him there while you go back to your rounds. You get the feeling he wants space. And privacy. You stop outside the ship and say a few quiet words to Omega before you go. He was listening, of course, and he trusts you to take care of the problem. But he’s still worried.

You drive off through the hallways on autopilot. Scheduling. It’s a good thing Pharma recovered from surgery so quickly, or you don’t know what you’d do. You begin ruthlessly offloading tomorrow’s appointments for you _and_ Pharma into every spare opening you can find in the other doctors’ schedules. You get hit with complaints and questions almost right away, but you’ve got the authority to make this happen. You’ll pull some long shifts and make it up to them after you’ve dealt with Drift. Once you have the time, equipment, and room booked, you look up Drift’s comm code and send him the appointment. He accepts within a few nanokliks.

It isn’t long before your entourage catches up with you, but you’re too preoccupied to pay them any attention. You don’t even bother brushing them off, you just plain ignore them. All your processing is taken up going over Pharma’s notes on his own surgery and recovery, comparing those numbers to the few other case files on record of major frame scale alterations, plotting out some rough drafts of what the new frame will need to be—

The rest of the day is a haze. You barely even notice when Shockwave tries to ambush you on your way to Blurr’s appointment. You just step around him, thinking through high-power engine models and which ones would work best with with a power flow system like you installed for Pharma, though perhaps you should look to the limited records you have on smaller Decepticon models and see about scaling those down to an Autobot frame— You only pull yourself out of those thoughts when the door to Blurr’s room shuts behind you and you focus on your patient. And belatedly remember Shockwave trying to have another conversation about… you didn’t even process the audio.

You finish your appointments for the day, but you can’t recharge yet. You need to finalize the design for Drift’s frame tonight so you can send the plans off for fabrication, so that you have time to run tests on the hardware before it’s time for the actual surgery. And you’re too tired to hold all the plans for a complex custom frame design in your own head, so you head off to visit Omega again. It’s a further drive to his bay than it is to your quarters, but you’d rather be working aboard him anyways, so.

He agrees easily to let you use his computers to work out the last details of the design. It’s mostly tedious detail work at this point. Making sure _this_ system interfaces properly with _that_ system, making sure this element won’t put unbalanced strain on the others, checking redundancy and resiliency, modeling expected power load on all components when they’re placed together. And so on.

You’re distracted enough it takes you a while to notice Omega hasn’t said a word to you since you came aboard. You ask, “Something wrong?”

There’s silence for a moment, and then he says, “Drift is sick?”

“Drift _is_ sick,” you agree. “Temporarily, I hope.”

There’s more silence. You’re just about ready to send these designs off to be fabricated. Even if something needs to be changed later, that can be done after the main surgery.

“He was frightened,” Omega adds.

You frown to yourself. “Yes. Not about being sick, of course, that would be too sensible. But I think it should be fine.”

There’s another pause. You’re fighting the urge to take a quick nap right here at the console, but you can tell Omega is thinking about something.

Finally, he says, “He was frightened of being a Decepticon.”

You open your mouth to say no, but it’s not exactly— _wrong._ You compromise with, “It’s complicated. But that’s probably a part of it, yes.”

There’s no response, and you’re losing the fight against exhaustion. You send the design files off to the manufacturing facilities, so that’s taken care of. You’re just going to rest your optics for a moment, then you’ll get up and go to your old ship quarters and get some real recharge.

The next thing you’re aware of is your alarm going off. You’re disoriented for a moment, until your memory reloads. You sit upright and groan out loud. Oh, your _back._ You should have known better than that. You stretch and try to loosen up, but you haven’t been able to get away with sleeping like that in millennia, you’re going to be regretting that for a while. Omega dispenses a cube of energon for you without being asked, and you generously sprinkle additives into it until there’s so many they start to fall out of suspension. It tastes disgusting, but you feel alive again after you’ve drunk the cube.

You don’t have early morning appointments today, at least. But there’s still plenty to be done. You head out of the ship, and Omega transforms to watch you go. You pat his leg affectionately as you pass.

Though, while you’re here in person— You turn back to him and say, “Omega, I probably won’t be able to visit you today. I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to make it up to you.”

He nods. “Is it because of Drift?”

“It is. I’ll probably be with him for most of the day.”

There’s a short pause, and Omega asks, “Then will Drift be better?”

“Hopefully,” you sigh. “It might take a little while to get all the way there, but it will be the important part.”

You wait, in case Omega has any other questions, but for a long moment he doesn't speak up. Then he finally says, "Even if Drift became a Decepticon, I wouldn't kill him."

You reset your optics once, and play back that audio in case you misheard. You've got no idea what to say and can't spare the time to follow up on that train of thought just now, but it needs some kind of reply, so you manage, "I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that. Thank you. I'll pass it along."

Omega doesn't say anything else, just nods once. You pat his leg one last time and make your way towards the medical facilities.

You touch base with Pharma as you go. He’s reviewed your frame designs and has a few questions and comments you can address as you drive. It’s irritating, but it wakes you up. And the things you’re arguing about are minor enough that you feel reassured that the overall design should work out. It’s worth having to grudgingly admit that yes, fine, _maybe_ you’ll need to redesign his suspension after Drift has recovered from the primary surgery.

Once you’re in the medical complex, you ping Drift. He responds immediately, asking if you can meet at his current location— Rodimus Prime’s room.

You take your time, heading that way, and knock at the door before coming in. You’re half-expecting to see Rodimus awake, but he’s lying flat, still and offline. Drift is sitting in a chair beside the berth, watching him, but turns to look at you as you walk up to them.

You nod toward Rodimus. “Paying a visit?”

“Just in case he woke up for a little. But, well.” He smiles weakly and shrugs.

You pat him on the shoulder. “It shouldn’t be too long before you can visit again. You said you’ve both trained with Dai Atlas, right? Perhaps you’ll be able to do some of your rehab together.”

Now his smile looks a little more genuine. “I was going to tell him it was a race to see who’s able to walk first. I guarantee it would cut his recovery time in half.”

You snort. “I guess you’ll just have to be the one to walk in here and tell him you already won.”

That surprises a laugh out of him. You can feel apprehension in his field as you walk together to the operating theater, but less than you expected. He sticks close to your side, and outwardly, looks perfectly calm. It’s only in his field that you can feel that note of anxiety.

And you remember what you just finished discussing with Omega. "I thought you might be interested to know, I've been informed that even if you _do_ decide to become a Decepticon, Omega won't be coming after you."

Drift resets his optics. You think it's as much of a surprise to him as it was to you. He says, "Really? Well, I guess it's good to be able to keep my options open." There's silence for a moment, then he adds, "Did he say anything else about that?"

You shake your head. "No, he waited until I was practically out the door before telling me that much. Mostly he's just worried about you."

He doesn't say anything to that, but when you glance sideways at him, he's trying to hide a smile.

Your attention is mostly on Drift, which is your excuse for not noticing Shockwave lurking in an alcove up ahead. Drift notices before you do. He stiffens with a burst of irritation, worry, and exasperation, and you follow his gaze— and see Shockwave already stepping towards you, one hand over his chest, already beginning to ask if you have news of agent Blurr’s recovery—

You’re annoyed enough that you’re ready to lay into him, regardless of how that power struggle might go for you. But Drift steps forward first and interrupts.

“Shockwave.”

Shockwave looks down at him and says, “Deadlock.”

Drift sighs. “I’m not interested in having that argument. Look, you’ve been living here longer than me. You’ve _studied_ how to look like an Autobot.”

Placidly, Shockwave says, “As have you.”

“Obviously. But for some reason, only _one_ of us has realized that— Listen. Autobots? They _don’t_ actually see murder attempts as a way to flirt.”

“If I’d fully intended to murder him, agent Blurr would be dead.”

 _“That doesn’t matter._ You’re not— You’re not showing that you respect him as an enemy, or whatever your logic is. As far as Autobots go, you just tried to kill him. It’s the _opposite_ of flirting.”

Shockwave resets his optic, watching Drift. After a moment he says, “It appears it would have been worthwhile to consult with you earlier. In the future, I will keep you in mind as a valuable resource.”

Drift walks off past him without replying. You follow after him, moving quickly to catch up. As you reach him, he curses under his breath and drags his hands down over his face. “This is exactly why I’ve been trying to avoid him. He’s going to be hunting me down for advice now. How did he live here for _so long_ while being _so bad_ at this?”

You’re still trying to process what just happened. “That was— _flirting?”_

Drift groans. “Yes. Unfortunately. It was also Shockwave, which doesn’t help.”

For a couple nanokliks, you don’t say anything, turning that over in your head. “After you’ve recovered, I’m going to need to ask you more about that. I think we need to avoid any— any violent misunderstandings before they cause a diplomatic incident.” Come to think of it, you need to send _Optimus_ a few comms as soon as you get the free time.

You realize Drift is looking sidelong at you, grinning. “Why, doctor, you want to have a nice long conversation with me about flirting? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

You sigh, heavy and pointed, but smile a little at the amusement you can feel in Drift’s field. That amusement lasts until you reach the operating theater and wave him in through the door. As he steps through and takes in the room, you feel a sharp note of alarm before he muffles it all, holding his field in too tight to read.

Pharma’s already there, with everything you’ll need for the surgery lined up and ready to use. There are two operating tables, one empty, and one with a bare protoform laid out on it. Pharma pings you with a list of the pre-surgery equipment tests he’s already run, and you nod to yourself as you scan it. You should be able to put Drift into stasis and get started as soon as all of you are ready to begin.

Drift— has frozen just inside the door. You reach out and put a hand on his back and he jumps, his field flaring out hard for a moment before he pulls it back under control. He turns to you, looking almost like he’s about to speak, but doesn’t actually say anything.

After a nanoklik, you put your hand on his arm. You say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

He still doesn’t speak, but manages a tiny smile and nods once, sharp and jerky. He lets you guide him over to the empty operating table, and onto his back. He resets his optics, runs a slow ventilation cycle, and pops the access panel on his arm. He glances at Pharma, then back to you. He says, “Go ahead and put me under, whenever you’re ready.”

Pharma jacks in, and within moments, Drift’s optics are fading out and you can hear his systems powering down. Pharma’s running diagnostics, sending them to one of the operating theater monitors as the results come in. No problems, no warning signs, no reason to delay the surgery.

Frame transplant surgeries are long, but the bulk of the work is tedious. Pharma begins dismantling Drift’s frame, working his way down through the peripheral systems to expose the full spark chamber and the cable network linking it to his brain module. You go to Drift’s _new_ frame. It doesn’t look like a frame yet, just a bare protoform and a spread of mechanical components. But especially since this is a nonstandard frame design, you still have to test each element and be sure it interfaces fully with the protoform to be sure that the body will actually function when you activate it, and won’t send Drift into catastrophic spark failure.

It’s hours before Pharma has fully disengaged all of the physical connections to Drift’s brain module and spark. He leaves only the primary power feeds in place, then comes to join you at the other operating table and assists you with the final stages of assembly. He manages to hit his wings the edge of the table five or six times. Still, together, you line up all the critical subsystem connections waiting to be linked into Drift’s spark, and when everything is finally in place, you go to make the transfer.

Once it’s done and the connections are finalized and the power flows are stable, you can close off Drift’s spark chamber and relax. You and Pharma work together attaching the last elements in Drift’s chest, test to be sure you can still expose the spark chamber, and then all you have to do is run basic electrical and mechanical tests as you attach his plating to his frame. When the last bit of plating is riveted on and Pharma declares himself satisfied, you lean on the table looking over Drift’s new body. He’s large— but not so large it’ll mark him out as an outsider. He’ll still fit in standard Autobot berths, in buildings. His alt mode is similar to his old one, sleek and built for speed, just on a larger scale than before. And with a power draw much higher than his frame would suggest.

You sigh heavily, tired but… pleased. That went as well as could be expected. Frame transplants aren’t difficult, but there’s always the risk of spark or brain failure, and most frame transplants you’ve overseen haven’t been a warbuild spark or a nonstandard frame design. You’ll want to monitor his spark activity for a while, but you’re feeling cautiously optimistic.

After that, there’s nothing to be done until Drift’s systems boot up and go through a full reintegration cycle. If this was a more typical case, you might be willing to trust to monitors or orderlies to keep an eye on the patient, but given this is an unusual situation, you’re planning to _personally_ keep an optic on Drift until he’s fully online again. Pharma sails out with a wave—and catches the edge of his wing on the doorframe—and you call up some medical drones to wheel Drift into one of the recovery rooms.

You settle in there with a datapad full of medical papers and a cup of nice hot oil. It’s nice having a chance to catch up on your reading. And to have a chance to _sit_ without having five mechs crawling up your tailpipe asking for favors. You’re glad you’ve already moved all your appointments for the day, or else you’d feel guilty about sitting around relaxing while you could be doing work.

It’s a couple cycles later when the scans on Drift start to show elevated brain activity, and maybe a cycle after that when his optics boot up. You set your datapad aside, standing up to watch him, looking hard for any sign that something is failing or glitching. Drift stares up at the ceiling for a moment, resets his optics twice.

He hasn’t made a move to talk, so you say, “How are you feeling? It’s not unusual to feel hazy or dizzy while you adjust to the new frame post-surgery, so don’t worry if that’s the case. But I wouldn’t trust your balance yet, so move carefully—”

Drift suddenly jolts upright. You lunge forward to catch him as he sways unsteadily, trying to brace his shoulders while he finds his balance. You will say that this was _much_ easier when he was smaller. But you keep your voice patient as you tell him that really, he should be taking this slow, and staying flat until his systems have had a chance to adjust to the new frame, and _maybe he should consider lying down—_

But he doesn’t seem to be hearing a word you say. He’s looking down at his body. After a long moment, he reaches down with one hand and touches his leg. He stretches out his arm and looks it up and down. You won’t lie, you’re pretty pleased with yourself. Things had to change to adjust for the new frame and power requirements, but you pulled together a body that’s as close to the old one as you could manage.

The only thing that’s worrying you is that Drift’s face is totally blank, and even his field feels almost empty. You’re left there just waiting for him to react, one way or another.

Finally, he smiles brilliantly and laughs out loud. He looks down over his torso, cranes around to see his hips—you have to catch his weight before he tips off the berth—stretches out both arms to study them again. And his field is pure, unadulterated relief.

You’re relaxing and letting yourself feel properly satisfied when Drift turns around to look at you. He’s still smiling so wide it makes _your_ face ache, but his happiness is infectious, especially when you can feel his field washing over you like this.

He begins, “This is—” But he loses his train of thought before he can get any further, looking at his arm again, twisting it around to see it from every angle. “Ratchet, this is—”

You might be smiling. A little. “Sounds like you might like it.”

He laughs again. “Perhaps a little.” He presses one hand over his chestplate. “It might be my imagination, but I think— it _feels_ better, already.”

You’re about to say something, something about possible aftereffects, but before you can even make it through the thought, Drift turns to you, takes your helm in both hands, and tilts your head up. He bends down low, and you have to catch his weight, but then he’s kissing you, soft and slow, with his hands still carefully cradling your helm. The kiss is gentle and lingering, and even when he breaks away, he leans his forehelm against yours for a moment before he sits up again.

And— you’re still processing what exactly just happened, but you do see the way one moment Drift’s face is pure delighted happiness, and the next moment he freezes, his field flooding with horror and mortification. He stares at you, unmoving, his hands hovering in the air to either side of your helm.

You dryly say, “Not exactly the reaction I’d been expecting.”

That gets a small laugh out of him, more relief than anything else. He pulls his hands back into his lap, but other than that he’s still frozen, not saying a word.

You smile and pat his leg. “Don’t worry about it, kid.”

“No,” he blurts. “That wasn’t the way I was supposed to—” He stops, tries again. Plaintively, he says, “I was supposed to do something _better_ than that.”

Well, you’re lost. “Better?”

He shrugs, looking away off to the other side of the room, his field full of embarrassment. “Just— better. Something _big._ Something impressive.”

It takes you a moment to understand. You should have caught on a bit faster _,_ but what can you do. Of course, figuring out what to say to something like this is a whole issue of its own. And you need to say something soon, you’ve already let the silence stretch too long.

You reach out and rest a hand on his leg. When he looks back to you, you say, “Don’t worry, you can try to kill me later. But any murder attempts will have to wait until you’re done with bed rest.”

Drift smiles again and laughs, delighted, and you can’t help smiling back at him as he bends down to kiss you again.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/184036467416/you-caught-me-in-the-tide-spockandawe)


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